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Exploring New Testament Scholarship, Anglicanism, and the Black Experience

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If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? Jeremiah 12:5

When the prophet Jeremiah lodged his complaint to YHWH about the precarious position of his country, his lament did not garner him words of consolation. If Jeremiah thought things were difficult now, how could he expect to survive what was to come? His move toward the thickets of the Jordan meant the end of his time in the relative safety of Judah. Exile would come to him and his people. It would pose new challenges and require a renewed faithfulness.

Northwest Huntsville is not Israel; African Americans are not Israelites. But I too remember crying out to God about the struggles of my people. I recall lamenting the dangers of being poor, black, male, and southern. The picture of my street, which serves as the cover photo, testifies to this formative period. Little did I know that college, seminary, and now a PhD in New Testament at the University of St Andrews in Scotland would prove to be its own, “thicket of the Jordan.” A new time, in a strange land, requiring a renewed faithfulness.

****addendum*****

I am pleased to announce that I have taken a position as Assistant Professor of New Testament at Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, NY. Once again I am in a new city, but the call to faithfulness amongst the thickets remains.